


Neither Heaven Nor Earth

by xahra99



Series: Crusade [17]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Arguing, Backstory, Children, Drama, F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 05:36:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13710963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xahra99/pseuds/xahra99
Summary: Malik's lover confronts a figure from her past, while Western powers plan a new Crusade. A tale of the Assassins.





	Neither Heaven Nor Earth

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a standalone oneshot set in my Crusades timeline. Altair is Grand Master, Malik is his second. Nusaybah is a Persian weapons merchant living in Jerusalem. Malik and Nusaybah have a complicated past together, and have been in a relationship for many years. Trigger warning for past discussion of sexual abuse.

 

‘And neither heaven nor earth shed a tear over them, nor were they given a respite.’ -The Quran

_Jerusalem, 1198._

The door slamming was the last word in a conversation that had begun several hours before.  Nusaybah stood fuming for a moment, fists clenched. One of the courtyard garden’s smaller potted plants rocked back and forth with the force her guest’s exit.  Nusaybah uncurled her fingers with an effort and steadied the pot with one hand. The shadows of the palm leaves on the tiles reminded her of a handful of knives.

She felt sullied, though she had done nothing more taxing than sip tea and talk. It was an effort to force herself to walk over to the courtyard garden to pick a handful of waxy orange blossom. A bee buzzed above her head as she cupped the flowers in her hands and inhaled the pleasant aroma. The scent calmed her mind. She parted her hands and let the flowers fall away. 

The sight brought her back to the centre of her world. She exhaled and let her troubles melt away, feasting her eyes on fluttering foliage; fragile jasmine, spikes of cardamom and the blue stars of rosemary.

The garden was Nusaybah’s shrine, an oasis of fluttering greenery in a city of bare stones. Islamic doctrine taught that gardens were a metaphor for the glory of God’s riches. Nusaybah’s garden reminded her that her troubles meant little to this world. There were always flowers, for those that wanted to see them.

She needed a bath and a drink of iced water, not necessarily in that order, but even so she found it hard to turn away from the small oasis she had fashioned. Eventually she spun in a swirl of veils and tasselled cloak and made her way past the pots, the vines, and the fountain. She used the flight of narrow stairs by the _iwan_ to make her way upstairs to the _haramlek_ , the private quarters. This late in the day, the corridor was a cool, shady retreat.

Nusaybah knew that there were times when events would take a certain course with no hope of any alteration.  She had learned through hard-won experience that there were always ways to load the dice of fate. When all seemed hopeless, she knew many methods to turn events more to her favour. All you needed was audacity, intelligence, and cash- all virtues which she possessed in formidable quantities.

She considered her options as she opened the doors to her chambers. Although her house presented an austere façade to the world, her private chambers were a different matter altogether. The doors were carved from scented wood and inlaid with mother-of-pearl patterns. The floor was covered with woven rugs and tanned camel-skin cushions. Mirror-backed candle-holders lined the walls. Wooden _mashrabiya_ grilles covered the windows, facing onto window boxes lined with jasmine.

The window grilles transformed the room into a comfortable dim cave. Patterns of light pierced the decorative lattices and dappled the carpeted floor. Nusaybah removed her veil as soon as she was through the door. She balled up her veil in her fist and tossed it into the corner of the room.

Somebody caught it.

Nusaybah reached into her sash for the knife hidden there.  Then she recognized her visitor, sighed, and tucked the knife back in.

“Malik,” she said, grasping for composure. “Working again?”

It was often an advantage to have a lover who could pass unseen, but sometimes she wished that Malik would announce himself like any normal guest. She took a moment to look him over. His robes were travel-worn, and he was leaner than ever, his hair growing roughly out of a soldier’s crop. His hand was ink-stained, and he had a scribe’s fortune of paper scattered around him on the cushions. Most of the sheets were blank.

Malik glanced up at her with a frown that mirrored her mood. She could tell from the way he set his shoulders and the angle of his eyebrows that something troubled him. “I didn’t know how long you’d be.”

“How goes your work?” Nusaybah asked, hoping to forestall the questions that she knew would follow once Malik sensed her distress.

Malik sighed, set down his pen and pinched the bridge of his nose with smudged fingers. “This? I’m working with Altaïr to describe new methods of assassination. On high, from ledges and from hiding places. Basic, but critical.”

She spoke lightly. “Surely your knives strike regardless? Can your young men not figure out which end goes where?”

“You’d be surprised,” he said, without rising to her bait. “Especially in a large or heavy man.”    

Nusaybah’s eyes fell on the spot near the door where the Templar killer Shahryar had fallen to her blade. Five years, new carpets and a great deal of lye soap and vinegar had erased the stain of the Maghrebi’s blood from the floor.  She had refused to move her chambers out of pride, though her decision occasionally seemed to her like foolishness. “Of course,” she said, and quickly changed the subject. “How goes Masyaf?”

He shrugged. “We still remain. And Maria is pregnant.”

The day before, his reminder would have brought Nusaybah only happiness. Today, the thought was tinged with sorrow and more than a little sour regret. “I know.”

“How did- “

“On a tower.” She grimaced. “Poor woman. I shall have to speak with Altaïr. He needs to learn a thing or two.”

Malik looked briefly horrified. “That isn’t what I asked.”

There could hardly be two more different women in Jerusalem than Nusaybah bint Khadijah and Altaïr’s Frankish consort. Maria had taken up arms to fight as Robert de Sable’s steward and would have died in the aftermath of Al Mualim’s plot if Altaïr had not spared her life. Nusaybah preferred to wield what power she had behind the scenes. She had found Maria’s friendship all the sweeter because it had been completely unexpected.  “They are well suited.”

“Maria is the only woman I have ever met who could beat Altaïr in a fight, and one of the few people who can tolerate him for more than a few moments. They’ll make a good strong son to carry on Altaïr’s line.”

Nusaybah opened her mouth to reply, but mixed emotions choked her. Memories she thought she had forgotten and scars from a life she had long left behind mingled in a bitter churning mass of emotion. Scar, she decided, was a good description. Scars faded over time, but they never, ever, disappeared.

Nusaybah had spent most of her life fashioning a wall around herself, her livelihood, and her garden.  One visitor was all it had taken to remind her that women had no power against ignorant, ill-educated men.

 “A son?” she said at last, turning slightly so that Malik could not see her face.

 “It is the way of our Order,” he said.

Nusaybah grimaced. “It seems the world is set on sons.”

She remembered Khaled sneering down at her. _To think that I’d have married you-if it had only been a son._ Silver threaded tassels cut into her hand as she clenched the edges of her cloak in her fists.

Malik misinterpreted the reason for her silence. “Do you still want children?”

She took a deep breath. “Wanting has nothing to do with it.”

Malik frowned. “What do you mean?”

Nusaybah’s belly churned. She wondered distantly if she might vomit. She raised her hands to her face, desperately hoping to smell a calming trace of orange blossom scenting her skin, but all she could smell was sweat and stale perfume. An old pain twisted deep within her gut. Teeth clenched, she swallowed, forcing down bile.

“What’s wrong?” Concern edged Malik’s words. Nusaybah’s vision blurred and she sensed rather than saw him rise to cross the room. “Are you sick? Or is this about Maria?”

Nusaybah raised her head and halted Malik with a glare. Rage banked the bitter fire inside her, and her grief and guilt and hatred smouldered to ashes. ““You think that I am jealous? I only wish her well. Why must you assume that women always want what another has?”

He held out his hand as if approaching a stray horse, some feral creature that would run or bite with all but the gentlest of touches. “Why must you always misinterpret what I say?”

“You should speak your intentions more clearly. I did not know you wanted heirs. If that is your desire, I give you leave to find another woman.”

Malik’s frown deepened. “Did I say that?”

Nusaybah gave him a glare composed of pure rage. “If you wish to carry on your line, you will have to find somebody else to do it. As you said, it’s the way of your order.”

Malik’s mouth tightened. He jammed his hand deep into his pocket. The observation brought Nusaybah satisfaction. Good. She wanted to hurt as she had been hurt.

“I thought it was your Order too,” he said. “But that is a matter for another time. What have I said that makes you think I value you for children?”

“Do you?” she asked again. “Sons, to carry on your name?”

“What do you think?”

His evasion infuriated her. “Don’t answer a question with a question.”

Malik stared at her for a moment and then took a step closer. Nusaybah glared at him, but he held up his hand again and settled down a full arms’ length away, leaning with his back against the mashrabiya grille so that his face was shadowed. “Me? No. You speak of heirs to face the future. Well, I have glimpsed the future and it is no better than the past. Perhaps far worse. We cannot- _I_ cannot-bring children into this world knowing that. As for Altaïr and Maria, Maria is Altaïr’s business, and she is his. They have made their choice. I -we-chose differently.”

Nusaybah swayed. She reached for the window grille with unsteady hands and knotted her fingers through the carved wooden holes. “I didn’t choose,” she said. “You don’t understand. It was taken from me.”

Malik’s frown deepened. “Tell me,” he said, and in his voice she heard the scrape of blades.

Nusaybah sank down upon the cushions. Her mouth was very dry. In more normal circumstances she would have called Munya, her maid, for iced water or hot tea, but today she did not want the attention her command would undoubtedly bring. Before she could speak Malik rose, crossed the floor to his pile of scattered papers and found a metal carafe of water that tasted of the copper that lined it. Nusaybah drank half in one gulp. The rim clicked against her teeth as she set it down.

“Today I had a visitor,” she said. “You remember Rashid?”

Malik nodded slowly. Nusaybah’s husband had still been alive, though sick near death, when they had first become acquainted. Malik had been _rafiq_ of the Jerusalem Bureau beneath Al Mualim, and Nusaybah had been widowed in all but name. 

“His name is Khaled. Rashid’s son. He was my-” She paused, shook her head. “My customer.”

“He was a patron?”

Nusaybah nodded. “He wasn’t kind. I had been bedding men for money for several years when we first met. I assumed that I was unable to have children.” She forced a smile. “The owner of the _funduq_ where I lay promised Khaled that I wouldn’t become pregnant. When I conceived, he was furious. The owner swore to him the child would be a son. This appeased him somewhat, but only for a time. When I birthed a girl, he beat me. He killed my daughter, and he made very sure that I would never be able to bear a child again. It nearly killed me. By the time I was in any condition to care what became of me, I owed money for my care to the _funduq_. They made it clear I’d have to work to pay my debts. I was very young, but for a long time I couldn’t stand the thought of lying with another man.

“Now it’s not unheard of to mistreat a whore, but what Khaled had done to me was unusually vicious even by the _funduq_ ’s standards. The story spread, as stories do. Eventually Rashid learned of his son’s actions. He was livid. He disinherited Khaled and sent his servant to pay me off so that the tale wouldn’t spread. When I found out he’d sent money it made me so angry that I borrowed servant’s clothes and went to his house to throw his gold back into his face. I don’t know what I expected, but Rashid was nothing like his son. He was a kind and gentle man who treated me with great respect. He paid my debts, and in time I became his wife.  Of course, his sons complained. Rashid sold off his businesses and split the proceeds between them to placate them. They took the money, but abandoned Rashid once he sickened. I kept my widow’s share, and learned to buy goods low and sell them at a profit. I settled all his debts and built up his fortune until it far outstripped the money he’d paid out. I never saw Khaled again.” She sighed. “Until today.”

Malik frowned. “What was he doing here?”

“He came for money,” she said, tasting the metallic tang of the water at the back of her throat. “It seems that he’s spent his share of my husband’s inheritance. Rashid bequeathed him a small amount after he died. I had no way of finding Khaled, though I must confess I didn’t look too hard. Now he’s back and he wants money. I’ve sent him to Rashid’s executor.” She swallowed, grimacing. “He did enjoy reminding me that he is still around.”

“What else do you know about him?”

“Only that he has recently arrived in the city.” By then, she had only been concentrating on getting him out of the door.

Malik nodded. He rose and walked swiftly to the door, but Nusaybah held out one hand to halt him before he was more than halfway across the carpets. “Where are you going?

“Where do you think? I’m going to kill him.”

She shook her head. recalling the scent of orange blossoms. “Wait.”

Malik made an exasperated sound. He turned towards her, then paced backwards towards the door, though he stopped before he was a few feet away, “What else would you have me do?”

“I would not have you break the Creed,” she said.

“The Creed forbids the killing of innocents. This Khaled is hardly innocent. A man like that does not confine himself to one such act. No doubt there will be others such as you.”

“Nothing he did was against the law,” she said. “Not even murder. Rashid paid the _diyat_ for us both.”

“There’s reprisal in wounds.” Malik dismissed her statement with a shrug. “An eye for an eye. And since he does not have the parts he damaged, I’m sure I can think of others to cut off.”

Nusaybah felt a rush of dismay and exasperation. She wished she could speak to Maria, who was the only woman she knew who might understand, though she suspected that the Frankish woman might match Malik’s desire for vengeance. There was nobody else she could speak to for comfort. She sighed. “Malik, stop.”

“Give me one good reason.”

“Whatever he did, he did to me.” she said. “You don’t have the right to decide what happens. You want to kill him.  I understand that.  But what you want to do is not what I need you to do at this moment.  Malik, this has all just happened.  I need time to think and to discover if he has done the same to others. Once I have that information, I will act.  Isn’t that our way?”

A muscle tensed in Malik’s jaw. “I have novices who can help you with that.”

“Do that, then.”

He paused for a moment, chewing over his next words, and Nusaybah was not inclined to break the silence for him. “And once we have that information? What will you do then?”

“I’m not sure,” she said honestly. “I need to think. We’re supposed to fight for peace in all things. What Khaled did to me was a long time ago, Malik. What does this say about the Assassins if you kill him for something happened long before you and I first met?”

“Does it matter?” Malik shot her a disbelieving glance. “He’ll still be dead.”

“He took my choice from me. I’d like to take something from him. But not his life.”

“Are you certain?”

She nodded.  

Malik paced back across the carpets to join her by the window. He leaned into her, not quite an embrace, but close enough that she could choose if she wanted to move closer. She did.

“It could look like an accident,” he offered.

Nusaybah allowed herself to consider the idea for a moment before she shook her head. At the time she’d thought her life was over. But much to her surprise, she’d survived and moved on and now she was beholden to nobody but herself and those she chose. “I’m not going to change my mind. Not tonight, at any rate.”

She reached out and took Malik’s hand. His skin was calloused from pen and sword, and reassuringly familiar against hers. “I didn’t mean to react that way,” she said.

“Nor I.” He glanced down at their clasped hands. “I am sorry. I didn’t know.”

“How could you? I didn’t say.” She sighed. “Perhaps my daughter’s death was for the best. This world is a cruel place for women.”

“This world is a cruel place for everyone.”

“That is true,” she agreed.

 “It is not what they take away from you, _ya amar_ ,” he said softly. “It’s what you do with what you have left that counts.”

Nusaybah nodded. Kneeling, she leant towards him, and he turned slightly so that she could reach without him crowding her, a delicacy she had not expected but appreciated nonetheless. She slid her right hand over his lean collarbone and down his back, tracing the slight raised ridges of the scars that crossed his shoulder. He raised his hand to brush her cheek, moving very slowly and, she thought, more gently than ever he had before.

“What was her name?” he asked into her ear.   

“Amal,” she said. “Hope.”

He moved his right hand up to stroke her hair. Nusaybah’s breath caught, and she found herself sobbing into his neck, tears tracking down her cheeks to salt his shoulder. Dimly, she heard the maid Munya’s slippers patter down the corridor outside towards the door. The door creaked open slowly. She felt Malik clear his throat.

Eleven years had well accustomed Munya to Malik’s unexpected visitations. The door closed, and the maid’s slippers scurried away.

He held her for a long time; long enough that her tears dried to salt stains and the light lancing through the patterns pierced in the _mashrabiya_ grilles faded to smoky sunset amber. Bit by bit, Nusaybah recaptured a little of the equanimity that she had found for a moment in her garden. The rough fabric of Malik’s cotton robe prickled her hands in place of waxy blossoms, and she inhaled sweat and salt skin instead of sweet aromas, but the sense of comfort and peace was the same.

“Are you sure you don’t wish me to kill him?” he asked eventually.

“If I change my mind, _habibi_ , I will say.” Nusaybah drew back and scrubbed at her eyelids with her sleeve.

Malik leaned back against the window grille. The movement provoked a wave of sweet scent from the night-blooming jasmine boxes. His mouth was set, and she noticed a streak of ink on one cheekbone. “There’s something I must tell you,” he said.

Nusaybah crooked an eyebrow. “Go on.”

Malik looked away. “We have heard troubling news.”

She waited for him to elaborate, but he just shook his head. They sat in silence for a moment until Nusaybah grew impatient. To mention dire news and not explain the events was, she thought, unbearably frustrating. 

“What news?”

Malik’s voice was reluctant, as if speaking would conjure the events that he described into reality like a genie from a bottle. “There’s going to be a new Crusade.”

Whatever Nusaybah had been expecting, this was not it. “Why on earth?”

Malik shrugged. “The Frankish pope they call al-Masuma, the innocent-though he is anything but-has called for a fourth crusade.”

 “I thought al-Adil had the merchant empires well in hand?” She had heard that Salad ad-Din’s wily brother had done everything in his power to avoid another war.

“Not tightly enough.”

“So it would appear,” she agreed. “Might we divert al-Masuma from his course?”

Malik shrugged. She felt his muscles slide against her hand. “It’s said that he has already led Crusades against his own people to purge the Cathar heresy from his land. Now France and England are at peace he calls for both countries to join in holy war. To liberate the Holy Land and snatch from the hands of his enemies the Cross.”

“The Templars are involved in this,” Nusaybah said with certainty.

“I have no doubt of that. But the last two years have been so _quiet._ I had hoped-” He paused.

“What?”

“It seems foolish now,” Malik said, picking at the carpet with his right hand so absently that she did not even know if he realised he was doing it. “I thought peace had returned. That we had done what was needful to set things right. That we had learned enough. Instead the more we discover, the less we know, and every year the Apples reveal even more. Yet nothing’s clear.” He made a frustrated sound. “Sometimes it feels as if we’ve glimpsed the crescent moon, but only Altair has seen the full orb. And that just for a moment, shrouded in mist. But we know this much. I have seen the future, and there is always war. Battles raging for a hundred years. Wars ending with a single shot too terrible for us to understand. And conflicts carried on in secret beneath banners I have never seen.”

Nusaybah identified the obvious flaw in Malik’s argument. “You’ve said yourself we cannot trust the Apples.”

“In this, I think they are right,” Malik said. “Or they will be if the Frankish pope has his way.”

Together they contemplated the prospect of a fourth Crusade. It was a bleak prospect. The Holy Land had barely recovered from ten long years of war. First Salah al-din had fought against the Franks. Then civil war had followed as Salah-al-din’s sons and his uncle battled each other in a war of succession. Fifty years had passed between the first and second Crusades, and forty between the second and the third. Malik said what they were both thinking. “It’s too soon.”

 “That doesn’t mean we should give up,” Nusaybah said, watching Malik peel the backing from the edges of her carpet. “We knew this day would come. Perhaps not so soon, but the world pays no attention to our wishes. You cannot kill everyone who disagrees with the Creed. We must seek to change their hearts, and that takes time. Perhaps we will not see peace in our lifetimes, but in our children’s children’s. That doesn’t mean we should give up.”

“I am not giving up.” Malik turned towards her and beneath his calm façade she saw real anger, honed into a blade. “I know this earth is no heaven. But ten years is too long to fight a war.”

Nusaybah sighed. “Peace will come. We will build a better world. One where no children will suffer.”

“On that we are agreed,” Malik confirmed. “I will see what can be done to divert this Crusade from our shores. Though if we send their ships to other ports the inhabitants of those lands may suffer. Should then we save this land at the expense of others?”

“That question has no easy answer.”

“No,” Malik shrugged. “Though if you wish to find one, Asma is in Venice now. I will set her to discover what she can.”

She nodded. “Do.”

“Perhaps we can find a way to stop this Crusade before it starts. Failing that, we may at least buy some time.” He looked grim. “Have you changed your mind about Khaled? I need something I can kill.”

“Not yet,” she said.

He looked down at the frayed silk threads as if seeing them for the first time. “I have ruined your carpet.”

“It is only a carpet.” Nusaybah laid her head against his shoulder. “It will fade with time, and if the Frankish knights have their way they will probably burn it all. Let us enjoy it while it lasts.”

Malik said nothing, but he leaned back beside her. Street sounds drifted in from the alleys outside: crackling fires, crowing cocks, while far away the first muezzin’s call marked the coming of evening. The jasmine was in full flower outside the window grilles, and large moths droned past.  A water-seller cried her wares outside the window, while somewhere further down the street two men were arguing vociferously about an unpaid bill.

Nusaybah drowsed, luxuriating in Malik’s closeness and the sounds of her city. In her mind she pictured a girl with her own dark eyes who she had held for no more than a few days. With a jolt that nearly shocked her from her doze she realized that Amal, had she lived, would have been sixteen. But then, she had not been much more than a girl herself.

 _I am not what men have done to me_ , she thought _, I am myself._ “We will survive,” she said aloud.

Malik nodded. “We have no alternative.”

“What is it that Altaïr says? _We will walk together into the future and emerge stronger than the past_.”

Malik made an amused noise. She felt his voice vibrate in his chest. “Altaïr likes his aphorisms. But that one happens to be true.”

“He’s wise.” She pulled a face. “Sometimes.”

“Don’t let him hear you say that. It’s strange, the way that things turn out. If you’d told me ten years ago that Altaïr would be the next Assassin Master, I’d have laughed in your face. Yet he is, and a good one.”

She sighed. “Let’s hope that he can stop a war.”

“That’s no mission for one man. He’ll need some help.”

“Then we had be ready to provide it.” Nusaybah stretched. “If you had told me seventeen years ago that I’d be here in my own house, plotting to prevent a crusade before it’s started, I wouldn’t have believed you.” She felt a moment’s pity for that girl, bleeding and bereft of hope on the floor of a shabby _funduq_ all those years ago, and a pang of disgust for Khaled’s actions. Perhaps she would reconsider Malik’s offer after all. Perhaps not.   

“Do you regret it?” Malik asked her.

“Not for a moment.” Nusaybah said fiercely.

Malik nodded. He rocked back slightly, shoulders loosening, and she noticed that he seemed somewhat more at ease. As his forehead creased in a frown, she knew him well enough to know that he was considering plans to fight the Templar ships that were surely sailing to their shores. She had a few ideas that way herself.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and she relaxed into him. He smelled of well-washed wool, wood-smoke, and iron-gall ink, all reassuring smells, and sweeter to Nusaybah in their own way than the scent of orange blossom. She found the moment bizarrely tranquil; the pair of them sitting together, planning a war.

“They’ll stop at Venice to build ships,” he said. “Perhaps we can divert them there.”

Nusaybah smiled. “Then they’ll need coin. The Venetians do nothing for free.”

“We can assassinate their leaders. Sow dissent amongst their ranks.”

She nodded. “The French and English have long been enemies. We should exploit their weaknesses. Take advantage of their mistrust. Stifle their funds. Armies are expensive, as both we know. I will fetch paper. We should send a message to Altaïr.”

  _We will face the future together_ , she thought as she rose and then returned with writing implements. _Standing side by side, and unafraid._

She handed Malik a pen and poised her own over the paper.

Together, they began to write.

 

***

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: The idea for this fic was originally ‘Nusaybah and Malik thrash out all their issues about not having kids together and end up formally adopting Marîd instead’, but as you can tell, it didn’t go quite the way I planned. Having children would have been an important part of adult life in medieval Muslim society, and although neither Malik nor Nusaybah are strictly Muslims, and in-canon the Assassins have wildly anachronistic ideas about a lot of things, I figured that exploring both Malik and Nusaybah’s deep-seated issues about having kids would be an interesting aspect of their relationship.
> 
> diyat-blood-price
> 
> funduq-an inn, caravanserai, or hostelry
> 
> haramlek-literally ‘sacred place’ -women’s private quarters in a household, which sounds romantic until you realize that literally all a man’s female relatives would be in there as well
> 
> ya amar-my love
> 
> There are always flowers for those that want to see them-Henri Matisse
> 
> Ibn Sina (Avicenna) was one of the first recorded physicians to use aromatherapy.
> 
> Malik refers here to the Hundred Years’ War between England and France, the atom bomb and the Cold War between the Eastern and Western Blocs.
> 
> Al-Adil. Salah al-din’s brother and ruler of Syria at the time this story is set. On 1st July 1198, he brokered a peace between England and France. He spent much of his rule encouraging links between the Holy Land and European merchants, calculating that if the trading Empires of the Mediterranean have a stake in peace then they were less inclined to support war. This strategy worked so well that the proposed Fourth Crusade discussed here was diverted to the Christian Adriatic, culminating in the sack of one of the largest Christian cities at the time-Constantinople.
> 
> Pope Innocent III, who was already infamous for leading crusades against the Cathar sect in his own land, decreed a Crusade in 1198 to ‘liberate the Holy Land and snatch from the hands of his enemies the Cross.’ The Christians and the Muslims were under truce at this time, so the Crusaders set off for Venice, where they planned to purchase ships to sail to Egypt. Unfortunately, the Crusaders had fewer men and much less money than the Venetians had suspected and failed to pay their bill. The wily blind Venetian Doge Dandolo suggested that the Crusaders might like to help pacify some troublesome towns along the Adriatic coast, leading via an exiled prince to an attack on the Christian city of Constantinople (then Istanbul) in 1203. This wild diversion of course had absolutely nothing to do with the Syrian Assassins. Innocent III died suddenly at Perugia in July 2016. I like to think that it just took Malik a while to get to him.


End file.
